For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Confused Ape]

This is meant to be a fun exercise. The object of the exercise is to explain how Christianity started when it did and why when there wasn't a real man who was obscured by all the Christian myths and legends. Any ideas from rational to barking mad are allowed.

Permitted resources if people think these could provide clues -

1: New Testament material plus Gospels and other early Christian texts which weren't included in the New Testament.

2: References to Christians by real people who lived not too long after the events which were supposed to have taken place - for example, Pliny.

3: Rabbinic literature.

I'm going to use Tacitus's report as a way of showing the kind of questions which need to be answered. (Most scholars agree that Tacitus's report of what Christians believed in during his lifetime is genuine.) Nero's fastening guilt on Christians refers to the great fire of Rome.

Tacitus On Christ

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.

Tacitus was born in 56 AD and the Annals were written in 116 AD. Nero was emperor between 54 AD to 68 AD and the fire took place in 64 AD when Tacitus was child. Pontius Pilate was prefect of Judea between AD 26–36

Questions -

1: Christus means anointed and it was the first Christian's translation of the Hebrew word for Messiah. Why did Christians in 64 AD believe that someone they referred to as Christus had been executed by Pontius Pilate?

2: What did Tacitus mean by - "suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa the first source of the evil,, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular"? What was this superstition in Judea and why did Tacitus think it had been checked for the moment after somebody had been executed"?

3: Tacitus believed that Christianity started in Judea. Everything points to it being a Jewish cult because the central character, a fictitious man called Yeshua, was supposed to be the real Jewish Messiah. Why would members of a Jewish cult want to tell Greek speaking Gentiles about it?

4: Early Diaspora Populations

As early as the middle of the 2nd century BCE the Jewish author of the third book of the Oracula Sibyllina addressed the "chosen people," saying: "Every land is full of thee and every sea." The most diverse witnesses, such as Strabo, Philo, Seneca, Luke (the author of the Acts of the Apostles), Cicero, and Josephus, all mention Jewish populations in the cities of the Mediterranean basin.

Could Christianity have started as a Jewish cult outside Judea and everyone just thought it started in Judea because that's where the characters were said to have lived?